
Book -PT) 7c- 



PRESENTED BY 




MMANDERY of 
THE STATE OF 
PENNSYLVANIA 




TO 



Brevet Lieut.-Colonel 
John P. Nicholson 




MILITARY ORDER OF THE 
LOYAL LEGION OF THE 
UNITED STATES 
COMMANDERY OF THE 
STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Resolutions adopted by the Commandery 

November 2, 1904, expressing 

appreciation of the services of 

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel 

John P. Nicholson 

as Recorder for 

twenty-five 

years 
1879 — 1904 



Printed by order of the Commandery 
Nineteen hundred and five 



Gift 
Author 



MINUTES OF STATED MEETING 
OF THE COMMANDERY OF THE 
STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1904 

Extract : 



* * * 



* ^; :>; * 



Companion Major-General 

John R. Brooke, Commander, presiding 

Companion Brevet Major William H. Lambert 

Commander : 

Most, if not all, of the 
members of the Commandery know 
that Colonel Nicholson has completed 
twenty-five years of service as its 
Recorder. Some of his many friends 
in the Commandery have had oppor- 
tunity to testify their personal regard 
and gratitude for his service but it 
seems proper that official record should 



Twenty-five 

Years' 

Service 



be made of the Commandery's high 
appreciation of his work, and I there- 
fore move that a Committee of seven 
be appointed by the Commander to 
prepare a Minute appropriate to the 
occasion. 



Resolution 
Adopted 



Committee 
Appointed 



The Resolution was unanimously 
adopted. 

Commander John R. Brooke 
appointed the following Committee: 

Companions Brevet Major William 
H. Lambert, Brevet Major-General D. 
McM. Gregg, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert 
B. Beath, Brevet Major R. Dale Benson, 
Captain John P. Green, Captain Noble D. 
Preston, and Brevet Captain John O. 
Foering. 



The Committee submitted the following 



Philadelphia, 

November 2, 1904. 
To the Commandery of the State of 
Pennsylvania, Military Order of the 
Loyal Legion of the United States : 
Your Committee appointed to 
prepare a Minute expressive of the Com- 
mandery's appreciation of Lieutenant - 
Colonel John P. Nicholson's twenty-five 
years' service as its Recorder respect- 
fully reports the following Minute and 
asks that it be entered upon the Journal 
of the Commandery and that a suit- 
ably engrossed copy be presented to 
him: 

The Commandery of the State of 
Pennsylvania of the Military Order of 
the Loyal Legion of the United States 
records that Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel 
John P. Nicholson has completed 



Minute 
Reported 



Colonel 
Nicholson 



Elected 
Recorder 



His 
Qualifications 



twenty-five years of service as its 
Recorder, and that during that period 
he has also served the entire Order as 
Recorder of the Commandery-in-Chief, 
acting or constituted. 

Companion Nicholson 'was elected 
to membership in this Commandery 
May 7, 1879, and, on the 21st of August 
of that year, vv-as elected to the office 
of Recorder, which had been vacated 
by the death of Colonel S. B. Wylie 
Mitchell, one of the founders of the 
Order, who had held the office from 
the beginning. 

Colonel Nicholson was admirably 
equipped for the duties of the position 
to which he had been elected. Possessed 
of administrative ability of highest 
character, intensely proud of the achieve- 
ments of the Army and Navy of the 
United States during the W^ar of the 
Rebellion, with profound conviction of 



the privilege and duty of the survivors 
of the great conflict to cherish its 
memories and to perpetuate its results, 
he apprehended the value and possibilities 
of the Loyal Legion and entered the 
office with full sense of its obligations 
and opportunities, and for a quarter of 
a century he has devoted himself to 
the promotion and furtherance of the 
objects and principles of our Order. 
Colonel Nicholson's zealous and self- 
sacrificing service has compelled the 
admiration of our membership, and 
the prosperity of the Order furnishes 
most convincing proof of his especial 
fitness and rare gifts. 

During his service the office of 
Commander-in-Chief has been held by 
Generals Hancock, Sheridan, Hayes, 
Fairchild, Gibbon, Schofield, and Gregg, 
and Rear- Admiral Gherardi, all of whom 
were loyal to the Order and by their 



His 
Service 



" 


I 














high fame dignified the office and the 
organization, and all have testified to 
his efficiency and gratefully acknowl- 
edged the indebtedness of themselves 








and the Order to him. 

W^hen Colonel Nicholson became 
Recorder the number of Commanderies 




Growth of 




was six, the membership 794, and the 




the Order 




aggregate of the funds held by the 








several Commanderies was $11,182. 
The membership of this Commandery 








was 212 and the amount of its funds 
$1107.09, with an indebtedness of $3,000. 
Now the number of Commanderies is 
20, the membership 8949, the aggre- 








gated funds $142,142 ; this Commandery 
numbers 1106 and the amount of its 








funds is $45,685. 








It is beyond the power of the 




His Work 




Commandery to recompense Colonel 




Appreciated 




Nicholson for the services he has freely 








and lovingly given, but it is in our 














1 



power to tell of our appreciation of 
his work and to congratulate him 
upon its splendid results, and it is our 
privilege to express the earnest desire 
that he may be spared long to enjoy 
the companionship of the Order and 
the proud consciousness of accom- 
plishment so largely his own. 

■Whilst gratefully acknowledging 
the obligation of the Loyal Legion to 
Colonel Nicholson, we deem it appro- 
priate to express as well our pride 
and gratification in his achievements 
in other spheres of patriotic usefulness. 
He bore an active and honorable part 
in the war from its beginning in 1861 
to its close in 1865 ; he is and has 
been a devoted and intelligent student 
of the history of that war, and has 
collected a great library of its military 
records unsurpassed in completeness. 
^Endowed with remarkable memory 



Achievements 
In Other 
Directions 



Battle-field 

of 

Gettysburg 



and with wide acquaintance with the 
participants in the War, including the 
most distinguished, he has acquired 
vast knowledge of its causes and 
progress, and has generously imparted 
of his stores of information to his 
companions, to patriotic societies, and 
to the State and Nation, and he has 
made authentic contributions to the 
history of the War and collaborated 
with the Comte de Paris in his able 
work, and successfully edited the 
American Edition. 

Entrusted by the National Govern- 
ment with the custody and preservation 
of the field of Gettysburg, Colonel 
Nicholson has re-established the battle 
lines and perfected a system of roads 
and memorials which has made the 
story of the momentous conflict plain 
to all who visit that hallowed ground, 
and has won the admiration of the 




A Splendid 
Record 



Resolutions 
Adopted 



who made it and to the generations 
whose heritage it shall enhance. 

WILLIAM H. LAMBERT, 
D. McM. GREGG, 
ROBERT B. BEATH, 
R. DALE BENSON, 
JOHN P. GREEN, 
NOBLE D. PRESTON, 
JOHN O. FOERING, 

Committee. 

The question being on the adoption 
of the resolutions as submitted by the 
Committee. 

They were adopted unanimously 
by a rising vote. 

:;-■ ;:: :}: * ^ ^fc :{i ^c ;]: :i^ 

John R. Brooke, 

Commander 




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QQ.P^90 412 3 



